Reviewed by Mark Glass

This month's selection of documentaries and TV fare on DVD starts with a
bonanza. What movie buff wouldn't enjoy the nine-disc boxed set from the
Biography series, Legends of the Silver Screen? They add up to about eleven
hours of clips, interviews and comments on many of the greats write my paper
- Katherine
Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, James Dean, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, Robert
Redford, Shirley Temple and Betty Boop.

The ninth, Hollywood: An Empire of
Their Own covers the moguls who built the studio system. These profiles of
lives and careers will remind you why our icons became what they were (and
are), including facts and context even their fans may not have fully
appreciated. Collectively, it summarizes how our love affair with movies has
so profoundly influenced style, culture and even politics throughout the
last century. Don't underestimate Ms. Boop in that regard; her "career arc"
is more sociologically significant than one likely assumes.

The Lost Tomb of Jesus is either heresy, thought-provoking, or
tempest-in-a-teapot, depending on your beliefs. The Discovery Channel's
coverage of remains found in Jerusalem that may, or may not, be traceable to
Jesus and his family, raises some highly-charged questions. Obviously, no
one knows what the evidence truly adds up to, but the controversy and swirl
of opinions is fascinating. Footage includes first-hand exploration of the
sites.

The History Channel's releases of Barbarians II and The Dark Ages cover
centuries of transition from the glory days Rome to the chaos that followed,
before Europe stabilized and literacy flourished again. The former is a
two-disc set, sequentially "starring" the Vandals, Saxons, Franks and
Lombards. The latter overlaps the same eras, focusing more specifically on
the demise of Rome (citing internal dissension, incompetence among the
ruling class, natural disasters and other factors alarmingly analogous to
current events). If that's not scary enough, one of the bonus features
casually mentions that bubonic plague, which decimated much of Europe and
Asia, is still around...even in the U.S. All episodes use a mix of
dramatizations, voice-overs and commentary from a number of experts to help
us learn from the past, and avoid the screwups that allowed good countries
and cultures to go bad.

Aftershock brings us closer to the here and now. Most of us thought the
Civil War ended slavery, and that Reconstruction was hard on the South, but
ultimately preserved their economy and the Union. Most curricula omit or
minimize the scope of resistance and extent of violence in the following
decade throughout the former Confederate states. Slavers still intimidated
their former workers into staying; many were terrorized and murdered; states
passed myriad laws negating privileges of emancipation (owning land,
voting, etc.). After Lincoln's assassination, President Andrew Johnson
shortchanged his programs designed to give freed slaves a fair chance with
land grants and education, because he never embraced the concept of
equality. On the other hand, many laws and practices by the "Carpetbaggers"
were unduly harsh on former rebels, whose homes, social and economic
structure had already been devastated. The Ku Klux Klan started in Tennessee
and spread quickly. That decade saw what we'd now call terrorism rampant in
all those states, leaving scars we still feel today. Remind you of any
recent post-conquest insurgency difficulties?

That brings us to The War Tapes - three hours of footage (the original
version and bonuses), mostly from personal videos shot by members of a New
England National Guard unit deployed to Iraq. This covers it all -
in-country action and down time, families back home, physical and emotional
perils and consequences, including the aftermath of their tour of duty.
Though most of these soldiers grew disenchanted with aspects of the reasons
for war and/or the way our leaders managed it logistically (training,
materials, role of contractors, etc), this is not just an anti-war polemic.
Their responses and thoughts about the future are diverse. Mostly, this
gives us a candid, insightful sense of what our troops are being asked to
do, from which any viewer can draw his/her own conclusions about where we
should go from here. For those of us who haven't lived in their boots, the
education this offers is essential.

For the fully disenchanted, Escape to Canada posits that our quiet northern
neighbor just might be more deservedly labeled "The land of the free" than
the US. The focus is on its approach to gay marriage and decriminalizing
marijuana, especially for medical uses. These points have been as
controversial and bitterly debated there as here, but the process and
results thus far are markedly different. Without the pervasive influence of
a faction like our Religious Right (which actually did pour funds into
pushing its legislative agenda up there) the tone of debate and basis for
decisions is quite different. The film is an amusing and enlightening
reminder of the gap between rhetoric and principle that seems to be
poisoning our own processes - a trend more alarming than the issues on the
table.

The most enjoyable of the lot (unless you're a hard-core Creationist) is BBC
Worldwide America's three-part presentation of Galapagos. Stunning
photography highlights a fine narrative that presents the history and
science of this uniquely fascinating group of islands - especially their
seminal role in inspiring Darwin's Origin of the Species. Nature filming
doesn't get better than this. Aerial views establish the volcanic creation
and diversity of the islands; underwater and close-up views of its
inhabitants, large and small, are amazing; the development of physical
attributes and behaviors specific to their environment, unlike members of
the same species; in some cases, even from one island to the next, makes
Darwin's conclusions understandable.

The Brits provided most of the rest of our fare this month. On the sitcom
side, the first two seasons of One Foot in the Grave give the impression
they're more comfortable with aging than we are. Curmudgeonly Victor
(Richard Wilson) is forced into retirement at 60 from his security-guard job
(replaced by a box that recognizes electronic ID codes, no less), to the
consternation of the gent, his wife (Annette Crosbie), and just about
everyone else who has to deal with this old dude who was never much joy to
be around, but grew even pricklier with unwanted time on his hands. The
scripts are well-written, without the forced titillation value of our only
hit series covering a comparable stage of life, The Golden Girls. Both
seasons include six half-hour episodes; the second adds its 1990 Christmas
Special.

On the dramatic side, Tom Brown's Schooldays is a solid Dickensian sort of
tale, set in a mid-1800s boarding school. Tom is a newcomer, as is the
headmaster (Stephen Fry); both face the unpleasant task of coping with the
long-tolerated tradition of bullying - physically hard on Tom; spiritually
offensive to Fry. Solid performances - including the bully who feels
invulnerable, since his father's endowments keep the school afloat - make
this one work well. Also praiseworthy is the job done by the creative team,
condensing Thomas Hughes' 19th Century novel into a brisk 93 minutes, which
far too many period dramas fail to accomplish.

An example of such excess is the three+ hour miniseries adaptation of D. H.
Lawrence's Sons and Lovers - a protracted feeding of Freudian soup. Mom
marries a brutish, hard-drinking miner. Before long, he disgusts her. They
have two sons; the cool one dies; the sensitive younger one finds himself
torn between love, or the illusion of it, among mummy, a sweet young lass,
and a hot older woman, who's also married to a lout. The first half plays
out like the staid, talky historical fare on Masterpiece Theater's less
successful ventures; the latter is surprisingly lurid for the medium,
including more nudity than we'd expect over here. Saving grace or offensive?
Your mileage may vary.

For laughs without nudity, the fourth season (1992-3) of Wings is a real
treat. The cliffhanger ending of year three, with most of the cast about to
go down in the plane, does result in an oceanic crash, but everyone survives
(duh). Brian and Joe (Steven Weber, Tim Daly) struggle to keep their charter
business afloat thereafter, while romances come and go. Farrah Forke spiced
up the popular sitcom, joining the company as a hot chopper pilot everyone
drooled over. Those who haven't seen the show will also enjoy the oddball
supporting roles of Antonio and Lowell that launched Tony Shalhoub and
Thomas Haden Church to much greater glory thereafter in both TV and feature
films. The writing still plays well, too.

Finally, those with insatiable appetites for animal programming (like a
certain woman I'm delighted to be married to) will be in Hog Heaven with the
two-disc 131st Westminster kennel Club Dog Show: Special Collector's
Edition. Even if the suspense of who will win each category is over,
devotees can groove on hours of unaired footage, behind-the-scenes features,
closer looks at the winners and the owners they drag along to the
competitions. Fun stuff for our society's prima donnas that never wind up in
the tabloids, unlike their Hollywood counterparts. What they do ON the
tabloids may provide lessons for us all.

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